The Skydive incident

The day that I knew I was flying to New Zealand was when I had decided what had to be done. Skydive! Skydiving in Taupo, New Zealand was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. Diving down from 15000 feet accelerating at the speed of 9.8meters per second is not exactly part of my everyday regime now is it? And what better place to do it in than the adventure capital of the world.

The day finally arrived when me and a friend took a ride out to the town of Taupo that boasts of various adventure activities like bungee, zorb, white water rafting and the dreaded skydive. While she was skeptical on taking the plunge, I was hell bent on taking the dive. The thought of being there and not performing the feat seemed obnoxious to me. So I went ahead and booked a ‘Tandem’ dive with Skydive Taupo with a video shoot of the dive (of course I wasn’t going to do it without any proof for later :) ). A tandem skydive is when you jump off a plane strapped to a trained skydiving professional who controls the chute, you can’t be trusted with your own life at stake when all you can do is scream (chuckle!) . 

The preparations for the dive took around an hour. There were total of 5 divers like me that day – a honeymoon couple from US, a couple from Australia on a holiday and me. Everyone seemed excited and a bit nervous at the same time, the thrill of jumping from a plane was making me a bit weird in the stomach. The ground crew meticulously strapped us into our jump suits and packed our chutes. My nervousness grew with every passing minute as I saw the crew working methodically working on the equipment checking and double checking. Finally each one of us was introduced with our tandem divers and my tension eased up when I spoke to Dave (my life saver/controller). From what I gathered from our conversation he had been at it for more than 5 yrs and did about 4-5 dives a day. That’s a lot of experience for a diver and I started having faith in him.We took off on a small single engine plane, it was 15 of us plus the pilot and the co pilot. 5 people there to experience the thrill, 5 people to give them the thrill and another 5 cameramen to record it for them. Soon we crossed 10000 ft and oxygen in the air thinned out, we were given oxygen tubes to breathe from, I didn’t think we did require it as I felt normal only difference was the temperature. It was freezing cold and I cold feel my hands going numb (+1 for forgetting my gloves).

Finally time came for us to jump and I was standing at the ledge of the aircraft door. That’s when it happened –  My diver ordered jump, but I couldn’t!! Suddenly I remembered, I hadn’t called mom today morning. What if I didn’t make it! Looking at the ground so far below made me freeze in.my footstep. He again shouted jump but the order fell on deaf ears. On the third call I pushed myself forward rather than jumping I let myself fall out of the plane and the fun began. The world spinning – sky, earth, sky, earth in random succession. We were hurtling towards the ground with a thunderous sound in my ear from the air and all I did was scream. It took me 20 secs to gather my senses and for us to stable out and glide in air. The cameraman swooped in and tapped on my helmet indicating me to (try to) smile for the camera. He did various gestures for me to imitate to add a fun element to the video. He swooped in low and high. Took various angles. He wanted to get all the shots and why not, it’s not that I’m doing this everyday. Meanwhile I was back in senses and was enjoying my fall. I saw land stretching from east to west coast of NZ. Yes! I could see the entire landmass below. Stretching for about 60 kms. I saw clouds whizzing past, it was as if time slowed down and in the 1 min of free fall I saw about a 5min picture. Finally my diver opened the shoot and in an instant everything went quiet with a jerk. The thunderous sound subsided and silence fell over. We swooped for about 5 mins manoeuvrings various stunts to make the dive even more exiting and finally with a thud I landed right in the centre of the landing spot.

Sitting there for a couple of seconds I took in what I had just experienced. This was the instance I realized the magnitude of the forces around us and the feeble self so helplessly trying to cope up and trying to conquer them. I did conquer one – I SKYDIVED!

Skydive Video

Pictures coming soon.

Windy Wellington

**This should have been published a year and a half ago but well.. better late than never.

My latest travels took me to a city on the far corner of the earth - 'Windy' Wellington! Strikingly I found Wellington to be a tiny city given that it sits on the pedestal of being the capital of New Zealand. At first glance everything about Wellington seemed small, a tiny little airport next to the sea, practically no skyscrapers, beautifully laid out small portions of suburbs. it seemed as if I had landed in a country town rather than the power house of NZ politics. A casual conversation with the cab driver lead me to the revelation that Wellington sits on top of one of the most active seismic belts in the country 'The Wellington Fault' (I made a mental note to Google it up when I was settled in my hotel room). This was probably one of the primary reasons Wellington appeared leveled.

First thing that one notices (I did) about Wellington was not it's size or the buildings or the terrain; It was the wind, the relentless never stopping wind blowing. Wellington has the crown of being one of the windiest cities in the world aka the name 'Windy Wellington' with

A quick 15 minute drive from the airport was all it took for me to reach my hotel. With work still a day away and having done 22 hrs of air travel, I was ready to give in to sleep but anxiety to explore the city took the better of me and I went out in the afternoon sun exploring the city. Wellington is on the south western tip of north island of NZ and sports a natural (needless to say a beautiful) port. My hotel was right in the CBD area so exploring the Wellington's compact city centre wasn't difficult. Right outside my hotel's doorstep was the office of NZ's Telecom giant whom I was going to work for. Few steps further was Courtney Place, the heart of Wellington's eating joints. There was an array of restaurants, café culture, pubs and clubs along both sides of the road with a few international chains I could recognize. This gave me a sense of pleasure and eased off my tension about food - I could actually survive without cooking for a while! Around the same area I was quick to find the supermarket 'New World' the heart of Wellington's grocery / confectionery shopping.

Heading further down the road was the best sight ever. blue waters of the pacific meeting land for kilometers. I must stop here and appreciate the Wellington civic authorities to have created a beautiful joggers/cycling trek right next to the sea that extended for kilometers at a stretch. I imagined myself running right there every evening after work with my feet in sync with nu metal or alternative rock my ipod. (I do-do this. Just not as regularly as I had imagined the first day :) )

The day was perfect. Evening was approaching, the sun on the horizon with evening rays giving the slightest of the warmth against the cool breeze of approaching from the sea. There were people jogging/walking/cycling/skating all around me, I spoke to no one but I didn't feel lonely. Leisurely I walked back to my hotel, had some dinner of rice and ready to eat veggies that I got as backup from India and then crashed on my bed for a new start tomorrow.

Windy Welly!